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Saturday, 23 August 2014

I was recently invited to a remarkable lunch hosted by young Peranakan chef Malcolm Lee of Candlenut Restaurant, and Ascott Serviced Apartments' CEO Lee Chee Koon. The occasion was the launch of a Peranakan cookbook authored by Lee to celebrate Ascott's 30th anniversary, and which will be placed in Ascott properties worldwide. I saw a delicious irony in Lee being enlisted by Ascott to celebrate such a significant milestone, given Malcolm's heralded Candlenut Restaurant is housed at the rival Dorsett Residences near Outram Park. But evidently, neither Malcolm nor Ascott (nor Dorsett!) were particularly concerned about this.

Thursday, 14 August 2014

So there I was, sitting at the back of my airport pickup from Phuket International and snacking on a caviar tin full of chilled passionfruit spherifications topped with a dainty mint leaf, when my friendly driver makes a throwaway remark. "Oh Khun Julian, you are so lucky that you didn't fly in last night. Last night, the police wrongly arrested a local village man for rape, so the villagers started demonstrating and blocked the bridge. You wouldn't have been able to come to the resort!"Bridge? What bridge?